User blog:Vyzyran/I've published my first novel!
Hello, everyone! My name is Vyzyran. I write High Fantasy stories, and have been working on one story in particular, known as The Hunter-King. And now, it's finished, and it's been published on Amazon. I should warn you that, though the first two or three chapters are Safe, dealing with just life around the village that the main character lives in, the book itself would be considered explicit, with multiple references to sex, and a lot of violence described in moderate detail. The book is available here: this link right here Here is the first chapter of the book: Spring, Sowing Month, 675 It was a cold morning. It always was this time of year, though it was now the time for sowing the seeds and preparing for the Festival of The Spring. It was a cold morning, and the hunter stirred in his bed, his hands shivering, despite the fact he wore his clothing of fur. This, however, was the Far North, and the people who lived in it were used to being cold. The winters lasted many months; the summers did not. These people were known neither for their philosophy nor their arts, though they told stories and poems to each other, of Kings past and Gods. They were known only for the bitter coldness (and vast forests) of their lands. People from the south who visited often vowed to never return, and even fellow Northerners, some of whom lived but a hundred miles from the peninsula found it unbearably cold in the later months of the year. Around tavern-fires, in hushed and whispered voices, things about men like this hunter were whispered. Among them: Giant-Kin. Blonde men, tall men, strong men - perhaps even bred by both man and giant - who used their sheer will and strength to survive the lashing cold and terrible harvest. The hunter at last got out of bed. He moaned. The cold had made his bones stiff, his muscles sore. He looked at the fire with half-open eyes. It was dying, the coals flaring up, red and orange, before fading to black ash. He wanted to build it up once more, but he had no wood. He stretched his shoulders. His brother was still asleep, under the covers of leather and fur on top of a bench of oak. The hunter went outside, knife in hand, and cut from a tree’s branches, large and small. He tucked them under his arm as he glanced up and over his land. A thick fog hung over the entire area, obscuring the almost mystical forest which lay beyond, the second home of the hunter. The hunter lived apart from the village of Orchard nearby, but he still helped it in finding meat and fish. He was a minor lord, an Aelmån. Thus, he owned the lands around his home. The fields, the home, and some of the forest around were his. His father was an Aelmån, and his father before him. Really, what that meant was that this hunter was a peasant who was not under a Lord’s debt. He paid no taxes and got taxes from no one. He preferred it that way – the solitude and independence suited him, though there were some times, few and far in between, when he wished for more. At the end of the day, the hunter preferred his life of freedom to the one led by nobles of a greater status. However, he still knew the Count of the Land, and the three Barons under that Count. He knew them by name, and the Barons often visited him. He knew the political structure. Serf, Aelmån, Knight, Baron, Count, and so on. If need be, he would be called upon to lead in battle. That was something he truly, truly dreaded. He did not even have a family name, or a crest. If he, the Aelmån, were to die, then there would be no funeral, no remembrance. Not if he died in battle. However, if he died normally, in his community, old in age, he would be burned; he would be treated with respect. He’d sooner choose to be in the afterlife of a mundane life lived, than the Halls of Warriors without a grave. Only if his life was threatened, he often said, would he go to war. He reflected on all of this as he went back into the cabin, further splitting the wood and branches, trying to relight the dying fire, engage the glowing embers. The small sticks slowly smoldered, then caught fire, and soon he had another fire burning again. He was happy, and sat down on his bed. He really had no idea what he would do now. Perhaps he would visit his sister, Helen, in the village. Or perhaps he and Dalen, his sleeping brother, would go fishing. Or, even better, he would go on his first hunt for several months, and for the great Festival of The Spring, he could bring boar, or deer. His brother shifted slightly. The hunter stretched out his back again, and grabbed his long, loose, corn silk hair, and bunched it up. Copper rings lay in a pile on the table of the cabin. He picked one up and tied his hair through it. A simple, single ring with the hair wrapped around it twice - a gesture to show his rank amongst the others. That was, after all, what all noble men and women did in the Far North. Even if it was a single day’s travel, a hike into the woods, one would bind their hair with rings of whatever metal they could afford. In the hunter’s case, that was copper. Common metal, no one used it save for cooking or holding your hair in place. Regardless of what the rest of the world thought, the Far North was shockingly rich in mineral wealth. Far Northern goods travelled as far away as the Southern regions of the world. It was a center of trade, though stigmatized. The hunter cracked his neck. The sun still had yet to rise. He fed the fire, and, looking at Dalen, placed an arrowhead on the table. He grabbed his bow, almost as tall as him, and attached his quiver to his hip. A hunt would not harm anyone, save perhaps his prey. He went out, and to the storehouse he went. It was a small plank house, which within it was kept the fish, meat, flour and salt that he needed to store to survive. He grabbed dried meat and put it all into the small leather pouch kept perpetually at his side. He checked each and every single arrow of his, for sharpness (each one pricked him and drew forth blood, each drop pleasing him for his own fine workmanship), and for the fletching. All but two were good enough to shoot and the two that were unfit simply needed to be re-fletched. No issue. They were willow, the shafts of the arrow, and his bow was yew: The willow, a tree of flexibility, of passive acceptance and of fate, and the yew, a tree of power, a tree of craftsmanship and of natural ability. The Far Northerners knew the qualities of every tree. Great warriors had swords with hilts of ironwood, and every King who wanted to rule for years sat on a throne of Pine. The hunter went into the forest, to search for his prey. It would be hours until he returned. 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